I don't know if any of you are gardeners. I surely am not but I thought you might appreciate this. When we moved into this condo there were some nice rhododendrons and other shrubs all around our patio. However there was one plant that I wish was not there. It is an Andromeda (Andromeda Pieris Japonica). You may think, looking at the picture (left) that it is a beautiful plant, and I'm sure a lot of people love them but I do not. They have lots of small flowers that attract LOTS of bees. Last year my patio was literally abuzz with bees buzzing around that plant. It was really ridiculous. I think it must've been a stop on the bees' luncheon tour because there were swarms of them. Soon the flowers started fading and the bees moved on but then the flowers started dropping off and littered my flower beds and birdbath below with mounds of rotting flower blossoms that smelled funny. Ok, so that might be good for the soil but it was such a mess.

Then came what I call the beads. Where the flowers were, little beads developed that, when ripened, dropped lots of tiny black seeds everywhere. More crap to clean up. A few weeks later there were the dried beads falling off of the plant and into the beds and birdbath. Again, more crap to clean up.

Well, while making my Zeppoli for St. Joseph's Day this morning I was waiting for the shells to bake and decided to look around the patio for clean up projects for tomorrow and discovered that the damned Andromeda has already begun to bloom because of the warm winter. It is starting all over again! I have been wondering if the condo folks would notice if I just cut the damned thing down (it is outside my patio and in the common area). I may just go ask the condo board to have the Gardening Committee move it somewhere else.

That's my kvetch for today. Sorry to give you an insight into what is foremost on my mind this morning. Oh well... back to the Zeppoli!